Unity is going to discontinue HDRP (High Definition Rendering Pipeline). Only the URP (Universal Rendering Pipeline) will remain.

So they are planning to invest all resources into a scalable setup that will not be as powerful as HDRP at first. It's expected that there will be a period when making visually modern games will not be possible in Unity. Honestly, it wasn't possible anyway — HDRP was slow even on high-end hardware.

#Unity@GameDEV
#GameEngines@GameDEV
#Rendering@GameDEV

Skate creators from the studio Full Circle will be laid off. The exact number isn't specified but the announcement happened after the team (initially promised to sell only cosmetics), hid the new map (tutorial island reskin) behind the paywall 😑

Overall, the game has a few thousands passionate fans online but that's not enough to support the development at a serious scale. The initial 135K CCU was obviously a hype train, but people are doubtful if live service model was ever a good choice for Skate.

#EA@GameDEV
#LayOfds@GameDEV

Xiaomi decided to commit suicide and bricked all of its gray import smartphones with HyperOS 3 update.

If by any chance you have a Chinese phone with global firmware (or just suspiciously affordable Xiaomi and POCO), do not update your phone. And disable automatic updates.

The phone now checks the real region and the one the device was aiming for. And locks it into an infinite loop if they don't match. Some users were able to fix the issue by quickly manually rebooting the phone over and over at least 7 times. Then it rolls back to the old system.

#Hardware@GameDEV
#MobileGames@GameDEV
#Xioami@GameDEV

People with the mobile Xbox app started to receive test popups because that's how their new provider works. LOL 😆

PS. That was AI marketing tool by the way...

#Xbox@GameDEV
#Microsoft@GameDEV

Some more Next Fest goodies:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1442520/Akatori/
#IndieGames@GameDEV

I lived long enough to see the sequel to Subway Surfers! And it's before GTA VI and Half-Life 3...

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sybogames.subway.surfers.game&hl=en
#MobileGames@GameDEV

Micron announced their new 24GB GDDR7 memory chips, rated at 36Gb/s (currently, the most popular solutions are 3GB per die). They will power the next generation of graphics cards.

But we all know that consumers will not get any...

#Hardware@GameDEV

Fallout 4 has all possible references!

#Fallout@GameDEV
#meme@GameDEV

California Law to Require Linux, Windows Implement Age Verification by Jan 1, 2027

A new California Law (AB-1043), signed by Governor Gavin Newsom, requires all Operating Systems (from macOS to FreeBSD) to implement age verification, at the system level, this year.

🔗 The Lunduke Journal

This is a documentary now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBGs1EQk0ZI

Do not use the recent NVIDIA drivers, they are faulty (again)

#NVIDIA@GameDEV
#Hardware@GameDEV

Bluepoint Games FINAL REPORT: From Bloodborne Remake Potential to Shuttered.
**I spoke to 4 Bluepoint employees and this is THEIR STORY on timeline, dates, and codenames for projects:

• End of 2020- Bluepoint Ships Demon's Souls and talks begin with Sony Acquisition and working on more original projects:

• Sony did not think the remakes/ remasters made enough money, and some people within BP and Sony wanted to branch out.

• All heard that Shadow of The Colossus remake lost money, but it was assumed it would, but Yoshida wanted to preserve the game.

• Shadow of The colossus remake biggest criticism was the new face on the main character. However, Fumito Ueda wanted it to look that way and designed it.

• There were conversations about doing add-on content to the remakes to help with funding into original content, and grow design department.

• It was assumed in the studio that BP would be remaking Bloodborne after Demon's Souls.

x.com/DetectiveSeeds/status/2026658516757365057

Fever dreams be like:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3857790/Kami_Quest_Enter_the_Imagynasium/
#IndieGames@GameDEV

Toy Story vibes + ENA:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2134320/ENA_Dream_BBQ/
#IndieGames@GameDEV

Jokes aside: this weekend is probably your last chance to play Highguard. The game falls below the playable online and yes, it's worth trying anyway. And it's free 🫠

1. You need a powerful hardware
2. Still Disable Global Illumination
3. Lower settings too
4. You need the Secure Boot to play

Is it a good game? Nah. Is it a menace to society? Absolutely not. But a lot of their design choices fall apart even on paper.

UPD: It already fell below 200 a few minutes ago and below that finding a match becomes nearly impossible.

The original founder of Twitter and AI-fanatic Jack is shrinking his current company from 10000+ to just 6000 workers.

He says that:

we're not making this decision because we're in trouble. our business is strong

According to internal documents, his team now despise him for pushing use of AI under "productivity" promise, but their overall opinion "we would use it already if it would be even remotely productive".

#AI@GameDEV
#LayOffs@GameDEV

Yeah, a good take: Riot Games failed with Hytale, they sold it back to the original developer, he released it just a few months later and sold 2M copies instantly.

While Riot's own 2XKO fails to get any traction in the industry and caused them to lay off stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3MBuVdST_s
#Hytale@GameDEV
#RiotGames@GameDEV
#Minecraft@GameDEV

Marathon free Beta gained over 140K CCU on Steam and quickly lowered to around 50K. The players are generally impressed with the polished shooting mechanics. So, a good game, right? Not quite!

The art direction is questionable and hard to use — the navigation patterns in the environment, the characters, etc. It's all over the place.

The overall gameplay loop is considered to be bland in contrast to the art direction.

#Bungie@GameDEV
#Multiplayer@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV